


our names do not appear

by cielchat



Category: Little Fires Everywhere (TV 2020)
Genre: Coming of Age, F/F, Internalized Homophobia, Mother-Daughter Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:53:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25029562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cielchat/pseuds/cielchat
Summary: Somehow, Izzy Richardson makes it out. She's lost Mia. She's lost Elena--or maybe Elena's lost her. She lost that home that she hated so much, that school that she never wanted to touch again. She feels like she's lost her mind. But at the very least, she's no longer swimming.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 31





	1. i stroke the beam of my lamp

As soon as Moody wakes up, cold in that bed he was sharing with Trip and Lexie because there weren’t any spare sheets or blankets in the apartment ghosted by Mia and Pearl, he stumbles straight to the phone, and with a heavy yellow pages across his knees, calls every motel within thirty miles of Shaker, asking if they’ve seen a fourteen year old white girl with short chopped off hair. They haven’t, and by the time he gets through it, everyone else is awake and Trip’s gone and come back from some corner store with eggs and butter and biscuits, and he’s gently pushed a plate into Moody’s hands. As much as Mom had depended on Lexie to do the heavy lifting with Izzy and Moody as kids, Trip had still picked up some of the older sibling caring, able to put a band-aid on a knee or carry his sisters around the house. So Moody eats the eggs and biscuits, and a moment passes between when he puts the plate in the sink and when he remembers that no one’s gonna wash his dishes for him. He walks through the sunroom bleached in winter afternoon light and sits down on the couch next to his sister and brother—hesitates a moment, and then lays down on their laps. Lexie’s tiny hand pats his curls softly. 

“How do we find her?” he mumbles.

“She’ll come back,” Lexie says, and even though she bled out all her confidence last night it’s still beaten into her, wreathed in her veins and DNA in a way she’ll never be able to get rid of.

“What if she doesn’t?” Moody still doesn’t believe her nonetheless. 

“Then we’ll find her,” Trip says, and Moody isn’t exactly sure which ‘her’ Trip is talking about. Pearl’s fading from his thoughts, if he’s honest, even as much as the bruises around his eye still ache, because he keeps getting a sick feeling in his stomach every time he doesn’t think about the way his sister’s face looked hard the last time he saw her. Pearl’s with Mia, and there’s nothing she needs him for now.

There wasn’t a question of if Izzy needed them. They needed Izzy back.  
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

September 2001

April opened the door of her dorm’s common room and slunk in to join the two girls she had met at orientation. Carefully sweeping her long, silky hair to the side, she sat pertly on the edge of the couch, knees pressed together and back straight. She’d been planning to attend Dartmouth since middle school, and she certainly wasn’t about to let anyone here get the impression of her as some country hick from Ohio. She was from Shaker, a good a place as anyone else here was from. The girls from orientation were comparing their class schedules, trying to see if they could meet up for lunch some days, so April let her eyes sweep over the rest of the room. Near the window, there were a group of boys and girls circled around the piano, talking loudly like they already owned the place—they were freshmen like she was, this was a freshman dorm, who did they think they were kidding? Someone was seated at the piano, fiddling out a bit of a melody in between throwing shots into the conversation, with their back facing April. None of those people looked especially interesting to April, all dressed as if they’d come from some southeast city and as if they didn’t care about their looks too much, the one at the piano was all in black like some stupid Halloween-come-early prick, and from here April couldn’t even make out if they were a boy or girl.

“Do you have any classes at twelve tomorrow, April?”

April began to answer her new friend, saying that no, she didn’t, and yes, she did want to get lunch with them tomorrow, and what about somewhere other than the dining hall, maybe the café down Main Street? It took her a few seconds too long to realize that the piano had stopped playing, and she turned her attention back to the other group. The goth kid hadn’t gotten up or turned around, and April found herself studying them more closely, noticing the lean body beneath that black button up and tight jeans, the confidence in the golden fingers against the ivory keys, the shine of the short blonde hair tied back in such a short, sharp ponytail. The kid—the girl turned her head very slightly to the side, showing off a sharp jawline and a glowing halo of eyelashes, but one of her new friends called her name again and April was thrown back to reality. She missed the pianist tensing. 

“Should we meet on campus or at the café?” Her name was Elizabeth, but April knew she preferred some nickname that would hopefully come back to her soon.

“Café,” April said, smiling apologetically at Elizabeth and Terry. “I have to walk from the art studio, and it’s nowhere near either of your classes.”

“Tell me about it,” Terry said. “I can’t believe the science department is so far out of the way!”

“That’s not where the science department is,” Elizabeth corrected, “it’s just where the freshmen science classes are held since they’re so large.”

“Whatever. I still have to walk there, don’t I? And imagine when it snows!”

“Oh, it’s four. My parents should be here, could you help me move in?” Elizabeth grabbed Terry’s arm pleadingly, and April remembered the two of them were roommates as well. She hoped Elizabeth didn’t ask her to help too, she really felt no need to life boxes right now, as much as she didn’t want to be left alone in the common room.

“We’ll see you later, April,” Terry said apologetically, and the two of them were out the door far too quickly. She needn’t have worried though, because in the time it took for April to rearrange her hair once again and put her schedule book back in her bag, the pianist swung her legs over the bench, strode over to April, and stood in front of her, tapping black leather boots expectantly. April’s gaze travelled up from those shining boots, over long slender legs, folded arms, and into the face of her eighth grade girlfriend and former best friend.

“Izzy,” she breathed, and in the next breath, “What are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here?” Izzy said incredulously. “You know damn well this was my dream school. What are you doing here?”

April had one of those moments where a flash of memory from years past revealed itself in her mind, and she recalled that it had become her plan to go to Dartmouth right after watching Izzy rant for an hour about how Dartmouth would be a good enough school to satisfy Elena but far enough that she could expect as few visits as possible from her family, and deciding that if Izzy would be at that school then she would too, no matter how hard it would be to get in. Somewhere in the years in between, the name Dartmouth had stuck around and the cause of it had faded.

“I…go here,” April said. “Obviously.”

“Uh huh.” Gold glinted at Izzy’s collarbone, and at the shells of her uncovered ears—were those three piercings? God. There were a number of rings on her fingers too, where they were tapping impatiently at her forearms. “Good to know not everything’s changed since eighth grade.”

“Does your family know you’re here?” April blurted. She didn’t even know if Izzy’s family had seen her—spoken to her since that night with the fire. She’d only heard what her mother’d been told.

“Nope. And they won’t.” A bit of a glare entered those green eyes. “Well, it’s been nice talking to you. See you around, I guess.”

“Wait—” Izzy had already swung away, but paused, not looking at her, just waiting for what she’d say. “Can we talk?”

“Mmm. Honestly, April?” Something had April’s heart catching in her throat. “I don’t know what I’d get out of it, so I’m gonna say no.”

And with that she was back at the piano, melody rising once again above chuckles of her group of friends. One of the girls there rested a familiar hand on Izzy’s shoulder, and at the site of it, April stood violently and rushed out the door, looking back just long enough to see that Izzy hadn’t once taken notice.


	2. aboard the sun-flooded schooner

Elena smiled as coquettishly as she could at Officer Barnes, despite still feeling noticeably the smudge of ash on her elbow.

“So you have no idea where Isabelle is.” The officer didn’t seem to believe her one bit, but no matter who he thought set the fire, Elena just needed him to find her daughter.

“No, sir, she got very upset and ran off into the night. If you could please just send out word to find her—”  
He held up a hand to cut her off. “We’ll look for her, Mrs. Richardson, but if she’s looking not to be found, especially if she’s committed arson—”

“She didn’t light the fire,” Elena snapped. She almost went on to tell him that Isabelle—Izzy—had run off long before the fire was ever started, but realized it wouldn’t help herself very much.

“Regardless of who lit the fire,” the officer said tiredly, “Isabelle doesn’t want to be found. Hopefully she’ll come to her senses in a few days, but it’ll be much harder if she believes that punishment awaits her here.”

Punishment. Elena had the feeling that Izzy had already gotten a taste of what punishment from Shaker felt like and wasn’t coming back in search for more of it.

“Now, Ms. Richardson,” Officer Barnes started, “we both know you’re lying about having started the fire. I was there when your kids brought you out of the house, people who set their houses on fire just don’t look like you looked. You’re protecting someone, but I think you’re gonna have to have a talk with your husband and decide what really is the best thing to do before you make an official statement. The consequences for you are much, much different than they are for, well, whoever did set the fire.”

Elena looked up at him, into his dubious and condescending eyes, and then stood and walked out of the office with her back straight.  
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

September 2001

Izzy lay flat on her back in the middle of the Green, soaking up the early fall sun with the hint of a breeze caressing her skin. She’d heard tales of the harsh winters that set their claws into the New Hampshire school from hardened alumni and was determined to take advantage of the nice days for as long as she could.

Beside her Mark and Trey were complaining about the professor they had who had confused the two of them throughout the entire class, and Alex was already reading the assigned novel for the next week—though Izzy had to admit that the golden lettering on the cover made the book look fairly enticing. Beside her lay Jem, who had been on her pre-orientation camping trip with her and had followed her advice into taking Drawing 1. The two of them had just come from that class, and Izzy turned over to look at Jem, noticing a smudge of charcoal on her pretty nose. She reached over, and Jem’s dark eyes shot open as Izzy gently rubbed it off.

“Charcoal,” she said, and she smiled back at her before settling back on her arms and closing her eyes again. Izzy watched a moment longer, caught by the way the afternoon sun gleamed on parts of Jem’s eyelashes. Then Mark reached over and hit Izzy in the stomach, demanding her opinion on where the group of them should get dinner.  
“There’s a free dinner for freshmen in McLoughlin Hall,” Izzy groaned through the pain, “not that I think I can eat anymore.”

“Get over it, tomboy,” Mark laughed. “What are they serving?”

“Fuck if I know.” The pain was quickly replaced by butterflies as Jem reached over and patted Izzy’s tummy comfortingly. “Probably something technically fancy but cheap enough to feed a few hundred people with.”

“So detailed,” grumbled Mark.

“I say we go,” Trey said optimistically. “Can’t be that bad if it’s a once a year thing.”

“Must be bad if they only serve it once a year,” Mark corrected ominously. Despite that, he didn’t argue any further, instead focusing on reading the hook on the back cover of Alex’s book, until Alex caught him and walloped him on the top of his head. Izzy smiled, reminded of brothers and roughhousing. Beyond them she caught sight of the willowy figure of April stepping from sidewalk to green in the distance—though gradually growing closer. 

Izzy dropped the smile and let her eyes close as much as possible, hoping that it would appear as if she were sleeping as she spied on her childhood friend walking past. It had been a huge shock when she’d seen April moving into the same dorm as her, just as she had been leaving to find dinner, but luckily she’d had enough time to overcome the rollercoaster of emotions and gather herself before their run-in in the common room. She was so relieved she’d put up a strong front, but it was still strange, and uncomfortable, and gut-wrenching to see her. She could barely sort out her emotions in regards to April; it was as if the past three and a half years of moving on had all been bulldozed and she was back to her fire-setting days. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to punch April, kiss her, do both, or run in the other direction. 

Between her lashes she saw April swing her head to the side, see her, and whip forward again, hurrying onwards. Izzy smirked. Scared to be caught looking, huh? She let her eyes close for real this time and relaxed into the sunlight; she noticed she’d been fiddling with the ring on her left pointer and forced her hand to lie flat and still. 

“I like this shirt,” Jem said, playing with the knot tied at the hem of Izzy’s patterned green button up.

“Thanks,” she said, “it’s pretty old, I got it from my foster dad, but I figured it would be good for wearing to charcoal hell class.”

“Looks better than something you’d be okay with getting all smudged up,” Jem said.

“Do you usually call him your foster dad?” Alex asked.

Izzy hesitated. “It washes pretty easily,” she told Jem, and then to Alex, “I’ve only known him for a couple years so I never felt like calling him dad, but foster father just seemed too cold.”

“Alright,” Alex said, and went back to his book unconcerned, but Jem was now propped up on her elbows looking intently at Izzy.

“You look curious,” she told Jem.

“You don’t look like you’re about to answer any questions,” Jem countered.

“You’ll have to buy me dinner first,” Izzy said, and then tapped her nose, grinning when Jem wrinkled said nose in puzzlement.

“I’ll take you out alright, one way or another,” Jem promised.

“Besides,” Izzy allowed, “I’ve been painting and using clothing-unfriendly mediums for a long time and I’ve learned the lines I can cross and those I can’t.”

Jem raised an eyebrow. “I think you just like dark colors.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I make attempts at writing once in a while

**Author's Note:**

> possibly....there will be more....maybe....


End file.
